Tea with Bethany
by Zute
Summary: The Champion has tea with her sister, Bethany. A satire of the romance options in Dragon Age II.


_**Notes: **_

_Some have asked, "why don't you write about Dragon Age 2". I hope this bit of satire will answer that question. Fair warning: I poke fun at everyone and everything. If you can't stand to see your favorite love interest ridiculed, best to bail now._

**Tea with Bethany**

At long last Bethany was coming back to Kirkwall for a visit! I hadn't seen her in ages. She liked being a Grey Warden and especially not having to hide her magic any longer, but I knew she missed me. I was there well before dawn waiting for her ship to dock and I waited patiently. Well, perhaps not that patiently, I did carve phalluses into the dock pilings with my dagger while I was waiting. Perhaps it was an unconscious expression of my frustration with the state of _things_. But when Bethany finally arrived, I stopped my obsessive woodworking and welcomed my dear sister with an enormous squeeze that elicited a squeak.

"SISTER!" I shouted.

"SISTER!" she returned.

We hugged, kissed, cried and did all that stuff. Then we immediately went to the Hanged Man and she got to reconnect with all her old friends from her Kirkwall days.

We were some number of sheets to the wind - remind me to ask Isabela how many, exactly - when we decided it would be a terrific idea to go to Madam Bouvalarde's tea shop and have tea. We stumbled through Lowtown, leaning on one another for sisterly support, and into the rather hoity-toity tea shop where Mme. Bouvalarde served tea to the gentility of Kirkwall.

At some level, I suppose I was considered high-browed enough to belong to the tea-hoisters, but in general they wore frilly dresses and foofy hats and I was a little more martial looking, not to mention exceedingly drunk. I suspect Mme. Bouvalarde knew better than to refuse service to the Champion of Kirkwall; the very one that had, not so long ago, aerated the Maker-damned Arishock of the Qunari, for Andraste's sake, and saved the entire city from forced conversions to the Qun. That image of me, slicing open the ten-foot tall, four-hundred pound mountain of pure muscle and fanatical devotion to the Qun, was permanently memorialized in a statue… so people tended to respect me and not contest my right to go where I please, drunk or sober.

"Are you sure we should be here?" Bethany whispered loudly. "What would mama have said?"

I pfft'd loudly. "Of course!" I gestured wildly at Mme. "Gertie! You love having us here, right?"

I was drunk, not blind. I saw Mme. shrug helplessly at her other customers and wring her hands with worry. "But, of course. The Champion is always welcome!" she gushed in artificial, placatory tones. "What can I bring you two, most honored guests?"

"Oh, just… you know… the usual." I had no idea what to ask for, having never actually voluntarily come to this shop. I was always dragged by Mom and she usually arranged for incredibly cute little foods and the requisite tea served in delicate cups. "Some of those… little…" I looked at Bethany for help.

"Cute foods," she supplied helpfully.

"Yes. Cute foods!" I was ever the supportive sister. "We require cute substances. Immediately, my good Mme!"

"So, Bethany…" I had to ask the question that was never far from my mind, "Are you getting any? 'Cause I'm sure not."

Bethany smiled mysteriously and bit her lip, as if the truth was like scalding, hot steam that would burn the fool that yanked the top off that boiling pot. "Oh yeah, sister. Joining the Wardens…" She laughed, long and low. It was a laughter of delirious smugness. It was a laughter that conveyed a sexual satisfaction so extreme that statues of Andraste all over the world would spontaneously combust if they knew the orgasmic bliss that the originator of said laughter had experienced. "It was the best thing that ever happened to me!"

"I really hate you, you know?" I slumped over the table. "I hate my life." I pulled out my dagger and plunged it into the little round table before me. "That is my sex life." I gestured at the table. "Dead."

Bethany gawped at me. In fact, the entire clientele of the tea shop gawped at me. I had apparently announced the status of my sexual satisfaction rather loudly. I didn't care.

"No, Marion. I mean… it seemed like things were going so well when I left. I mean, Fenris was always staring at your backside."

I held up a hand. "Oh… just… stop!" I drew out my other dagger and threw it across the room so it landed in the wall and buried itself at least an inch deep in the plaster. "Fenris looks more feminine than I do! But even so... emotionally he's a complete wreck. I don't think all the Vicount's horses and all the Viscount's men could put _that_ Humpty Dumpty back together again." I lowered my voice slightly, but I noticed all the other clientele leaning in to listen. "We tried it… truly. There was one night of passion. I was afraid I might hurt him. He was all… 'Oh no! My tattoos burn when you touch them.' I was groovin' on them. I totally followed them around his body with my tongue and he complains about it! So, then we did _it_ and he's all 'Oh no! My memories are coming back. I'm soooo confused! I can't do this because I need to torture myself more about my past.'"

Bethany shook her head. "Maker… I knew he was a little glum, but I had no idea."

"Those elves come with a lot of emotional baggage!" A middle-aged matron across the shop said loudly.

"Tell me about it!" I yelled back. "Whatever happened to the concept of free interspecies love?"

"You can get it at the Blooming Rose!" the matron shouted back, "'Cept it isn't free."

I laughed with her and lifted my teacup to salute her.

Tea… bleh. It lacked something. "Mme! I need something in this tea. It's a bit bland today. Some _Old Starkhaven_ would be nice."

The tea-hoisters around us gasped.

"A round for everyone! On the Ch…" I almost said Champion but then I thought the Chantry had deeper pockets than I did. "Ch… Chantry!" My proclamation was met with applause and a few gasps. Grand Cleric Elvira, Mistress of Light, wouldn't mind.

Mme. scurried off to fetch some liquid enchantment and I reminded her that we still didn't have our cute foods and that Bethany was a Grey Warden, she was likely to start eating the clientele at any time. That just amplified her hand wringing and she started to spout some nonsense in her fake Orlesian gobbledygook.

"Cute food, now!" I shouted after her. "I can't restrain my sister much longer!"

"Rawr!" Bethany supplied.

We snickered conspiratorially. "Mother would be spinning," Bethany said.

"Totally."

She settled back in her chair and we paused in our girl chatter while Mme. slapped down a three-tiered tray of cute foods and shuttled off again, no doubt looking for a bottle of _Old Starkhaven_, a liquor I doubt she'd find since I had just made up the name.

"So… what about Anders?" my sister asked me. "I know you totally dig him."

I scoffed as I pushed a miniscule sandwich into my mouth. "Anders… yeah. I fully expect he's going to go completely barmy." I sighed. "What did you people do to him?"

"We people? You mean, the Grey Wardens?"

Bethany was starting to get defensive. She obviously was really identifying with her new people. "Well, I mean, before you were there, of course," I said, trying to smooth her ruffled feathers. "He's really messed up. One minute he's all sexy and smooth then the next he's ready to climb a tower and start shooting passersby with a crossbow."

Bethany's face fell. "That's just… wow, I had some hope for you two. I know how you go for facial scruff and he seemed to always have lots of it."

I sighed and slumped over the table again. "He's manly, I'll give him that. I can even overlook the bisexual past and stop wondering if he'd prefer a Karl to a Carla if he buried that scruffy face between my legs." I realized my voice was getting a little whiny and loud.

"Hear, hear!" an elderly matron injected.

"But he's like a barrel of gaatlok at a wiener roast. One stray spark and KABLOOEY!" I pounded the table for effect.

"You don't want that between your legs, Champion," a matron said helpfully.

I pointed at her. "Exactamente, senora!" I knew a little Rivaini… very little.

"What about Varric, sis? I know he's short and all, but wow… you want chest hair and scruff, the guy has got it in spades. I'm not normally about dwarves but I'd make an exception!"

I frowned at her. "He's not into me. Oh Maker… I tried, trust me. He just kept babbling about Bianca and how he could never do _that_ to her. I even said, 'Bring her to bed with us', but he refused."

"He's just not into you, Champion," one of the other clientele suggested.

"Yeah, thanks for that. I couldn't tell." I glared at the impertinent commenter.

"Sebastian? He's a freaking prince, Marion!" Bethany gesticulated wildly like how could I miss the fact that Mr. Melting-Blue-Eyes was not only super sexy but a prince.

"Sweet Maker, yes!" another client sighed. "He's dreamy."

"Yeah… well, he's also chaste and I couldn't get him to remove that bizarre sculpture of Andraste that dangles over his naughty bits no matter what I tried. He did offer to make a chaste marriage to me if I joined the Chantry as a sister."

Tears formed in Bethany's eyes for my plight, reminding me of why I loved my sister so much.

"Maker! What's wrong with the men in Kirkwall?" my matronly friend interjected. "The poor Champion just wants to get laid. Is there no one man enough to do it?"

Mme. showed up just in the nick of time to pour something spirited into our teapot. I wondered where she had found a bottle of _Old Starkhaven_. "I think you'll like this, my ladies."

I wasn't about to object to whatever it was. "Thank you, Mme. Don't forget to put it on the Chantry's tab… err… Sebastian Vael's actually." Inspiration struck. "Spoiled, rotten git," I murmured.

Mme. made the rounds of the room and gave everyone who wanted a shot.

"Medicinal purposes," elderly matron said.

"Keep the medicine coming," I shouted after Mme. I wanted my new friends to have lots of medicine. I was growing fond of them. I swilled down my _tea _and poured some more and sent that down after the other _tea. _I was starting to feel a little more _medicated_ myself.

"So…" Bethany reached across the table and took my hand, her eyes were limpid pools of commiseration, "there is no one?"

"Weeeeelllll…." I drew out the word looking for the right way to break the new to my sister. "There were some interesting alternatives…err… presented."

"Alternatives?" she pressed.

"Um, yeah." My eyes darted left, then right, then left again. Not sure exactly who they were looking for. There was just me, my sister, and all my new friends here in the tea shop.

"Man whores?" one of my new friends supplied helpfully.

"Oh yeah, there's always those, but that's not what I mean." I cleared my throat preparing for my confession. "I've been approached by certain members of my own gender for possible liaisons of the naked variety."

A chorus of gasps arose from the throats of my new best friends.

"That's hot!" elderly matron said.

Bethany looked the most shocked of them all. "Did you?" she sputtered. "With who?"

"With whom?" I corrected her.

"Yes. Tell me!" She looked about to leap over the table and yank it out of me.

"I didn't say I _did _it, now did I? Just that the opportunity has been presented." I riposted her lunge, deftly.

"Say it, sister." The air began to sparkle with magical energies.

"All right, it was Isabela, if you must know."

"And…" My sister was relentless, like a hound on a hare.

"And… I'm too drunk to recall. I think something might have happened. It was only that once. I'm not really into women, though."

I heard murmurs of 'Maker!', 'Andraste preserve!' and 'That's hot!' echoing around the shop. "Another round for my friends, Mme!" I realized they would need more medicine.

"So, just the once?" my sister asked. "What about that cute little elven girl, she seemed to worship you?"

"Oh Maker, Bethany. She's another nutcase, but at least she's cute about being nutty. She's fixated on mirror restoration and blood magick."

Bethany shook her head. "Wait… what about Aveline?"

"I told you, sis, I'm not into women. Isabela was a fluke. Aveline isn't into me either. It's a match made in heaven." I sighed and rolled my eyes. "You totally think I'm a lesbian now, don't you?"

"You've always been a bit masculine, sis," my sister said. "I won't judge you."

I thumped the table with my fist and made the teacups bounce. "Stop it, sis! You know how much I like scruff and firm, manly pectorals and dangly bits."

Bethany hummed dubiously. "I've been gone nearly two years and the only conquest you have to talk about is an effeminate elf and a woman. But I'll take your word for it. You prefer men… I get it. So… why haven't you found any?"

By this time my friends at the other tables were getting up and pressing closer. I was nearly overwhelmed by the smell of antique lace, attar of roses, and whatever it was that Mme. had poured into our tea. I was being judged by my peers. Why hadn't I found a man in all this time I'd been in their fair city-state? Was there something wrong with me?

"I don't know," I whimpered pitifully. "The Maker must hate me." I broke down and cried my eyes out. Love, it seemed, was not an option for me in Kirkwall unless I wanted to mate with madness, couple with crazies, or pair with a pirate.

"There, there, Champion," elderly matron said and patted my shoulder. "There's always the Blooming Rose."

My sister pounded the table and stood up, somewhat unsteadily. "No! We are Hawkes. We don't need to resort to man whores." She put an arm around my shoulders and hugged me affectionately. "My dear sister, the Wardens are always recruiting and the men in Ferelden are manly men. You should see the King!"

I looked up at her from between tear-laden eyelashes, a glimmer of hope in my heart. Ferelden? Why not. It was home to us, after all. The Blight was gone and all the stories my sister had written to me, of the Warden-Commander, the King, the Teyrn Loghain, Bann Teagan, Nathaniel Howe… I could attest to his manliness. I had heard tales of the strength and stamina possessed by the Wardens'. And then there were the _other _stories… the lascivious whispers whenever they were about, the parades where men and women threw their unmentionables to their favorite Wardens. Clearly Bethany had had the better career path.

"Tell me just one thing, Bethy," I begged her. "I know you have secrets to protect, but just be honest with me. Is it as good as they say?"

That smug smile came back and she giggled again. "Better." Andrastes began combusting all over again.

I made up my mind. "Sign me up."

The tea shop erupted in cheers, even though they were going to lose their Champion to Ferelden. Bethany grabbed me and hugged me fiercely. "Pack your stuff, sis. We'll leave on the tide tomorrow."

I cried happily and nodded. I was mobbed by tea-hoisters wishing me good fortune and my sister and I walked home, leaning heavily on one another and babbling happy about our future together in the Wardens.

~o~o~o~

As our ship sailed away from Kirkwall I looked back on it and knew I'd done the right thing. I'd miss my insane friends but I sure wouldn't miss all the things represented by those monolithic slaves at the entrance to the straits.

In a few hours, they'd open the note I'd left at the Hanged Man:

_Dear Friends – Gone to Ferelden to join the Wardens and get laid. Miss you all lots. Kisses, Marion Hawke._

_**Notes: **__Okay, got that out of my system. I conceived of this today, drank a bit more wine than I was accustomed to… it was a tough day today… and this spilled forth. It's completely unbeta'd so I expect it'll be a little bumpy. My apologies._

_Reviews always appreciated!_


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